


You Can't Tame the Wind

by elrhiarhodan



Series: Paladin 'Verse [30]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Multi, OT3, paladin 'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 21:57:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter can’t stop worry about the risks Neal takes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can't Tame the Wind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doctor_fangeek](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=doctor_fangeek).



> Published as birthday fic for my very dear friend, Doctor_Fangeek.

For as long as he’d known Neal, Peter understood that the man thrived on danger. Neal may have disliked guns and had a strong aversion to violence, but he was also something of an adrenaline junkie. After all, the first time they met face to face, hadn’t Neal jumped off the Rialto Bridge in Venice? And the second time, didn’t he defenestrate himself in Prague?

Prison might have taught him a lot of things, but caution wasn’t one of them. 

Peter stopped counting the number of near-heart attacks Neal had given him, but seeing him leap out the window of judge’s fourth-story chambers and jump between the Roosevelt Island tram cars were in the top ten. He hadn’t seen it, and he still wasn’t sure he believed it either, but even the thought of Neal parachuting off a forty-ninth floor penthouse was enough to make him wish he had one of those little spray canisters of nitroglycerine that men with heart conditions carry.

Still, as much as Neal took terrible risks, there was always a point to them – usually to escape from the consequences of his own folly (or thievery) – but sometimes to save lives. In a way, Peter understood Neal’s actions – they made Neal, well, Neal. The man he loved almost as much as he loved his life.

It was a terrible dichotomy – he hated the thought of Neal in jeopardy. But taming Neal, turning him into someone who thought more about his personal safety than about doing the right thing, would be like caging a great cat. Not just caging it, but declawing it and pulling its teeth and making it into some kind of vegetarian. 

It was a problem that kept him up for way too many nights. Like tonight, after watching Neal draw a gunman’s fire, getting shot in the process. Thank god for that bulletproof vest. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here, in this bed – the three of them – satiated and safe. 

He rolled over and tried to still his unquiet mind. 

“What’s the matter?” Neal leaned up on one elbow, speaking in a nearly inaudible whisper. 

“Nothing.” Peter rolled to his other side, facing towards El now. Thank goodness his wife slept like the dead.

“It’s not nothing.” 

He tried to ignore the hand on his shoulder, the warm, smooth palm trying to give him some comfort. He heard Neal sigh and the covers shifted as he relaxed back against the pillows. Peter tried to let the tension uncoil, but how could it when Neal spooned against him and said, “I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

_But how could he? How could he try to tame the wind?_

__

FIN


End file.
